Welcome to Natural MD Radio, your place to hear the whole truth on health and medicine for women and children and get the tools you need to take back your health naturally starting now. I'm Dr. Aviva Ral. headaches and migraines.

Most of us have experienced at least one or the other at some point

and know just how miserable they can be.

It's likely too that you've noticed a connection between headache or migraine

symptoms and your hormonal shifts.

And you'd be exactly right.

Hormonal shifts can be a huge trigger, as I'm going to show you.

Sicklyk and life cycle related hormone changes are why headaches are far more common in women,

with migraines three times as common in women as they are in men. It also explains why for many women they first

show up when we first start getting our periods or in our late teens or early

20s and drop by 50% or even disappear completely after menopause.

Unfortunately, many doctors don't take women's reports about our headaches and

migrain seriously.

In fact, there's a long history of medical, racial, and gender bias that's led to doctors denying

women's headaches and migraine experiences.

In one study of over 1,200 individuals seeking care for headache from a primary care provider, researchers found that 94%

of the 377 patients who turned in a headache diary met criteria for migraines,

but at least 25% did not receive a diagnosis of migraine.

Black women due to systemic racism

and the institutionalized beliefs that black women don't feel as much pain,

can just handle it or are drug-seeking, are routinely and systematically under-treated for pain,

including migraines. If you're interested in learning more

...